


Four Letter Words

by ragtags



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Four Letter Words, Implied Sexual Content, Love, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Possessive Crowley, Short One Shot, Top Crowley - Freeform, mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 08:49:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20150899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragtags/pseuds/ragtags
Summary: But what he hates most about those four letter words?He hates how much he loves the way Aziraphale scrawls them across his skin like a prayer at night; limbs entangled with one another as they hold fast against the universe.





	Four Letter Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OneofWebs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneofWebs/gifts).

He hates them; those four letter words. He hates how they feel in his mouth; hates how they rear their ugly heads in the form of a smile, or a tiny gesture. He especially hates them as they’re peppered into conversation as small little words of encouragement. 

“How  _ kind of you _ ,” Aziraphale sighs one day with a smile and it makes his skin burn. He realizes then that he really doesn’t like them in this form. 

“It was very  _ good  _ of you,” Aziraphale hums once during lunch, and he wants nothing more than to tear the flesh from his own bones just to escape it. 

“You really are a  _ nice— _ “ Aziraphale begins another time, but this time he’s had enough. He reaches, grabs at lapels and pins the other against the wall, hissing all the while.

“I’m not  _ nice _ ,” he hisses through gritted teeth. Already he can feel them- those four letter words- searing into his brain as if they were an iron rod imprinting on him to be claimed like cattle. 

Sometimes he hates the eight letter phrases. Well, there’s only just the one but he hates it all the same. 

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Aziraphale says with excitement and a bit of awe in his voice when he brings over a box of chocolates to celebrate the opening of the bookshop. 

“ _ Thank you, that was so very kind of you, dear _ .” Aziraphale’s voice was curt that time, giving him a look he’s never really seen before as they stand in the ruins of a church in London. He realizes then, in that moment, that he hates it most when those words are used together to describe  _ him _ .

“Shut up,” is all he can manage to retort because the idea of waging a full on war of words makes his skin tingle with the full understanding that he knows he’d lose. 

But what he hates most about those four letter words?

He hates how much he loves the way Aziraphale scrawls them across his skin like a prayer at night; limbs entangled with one another as they hold fast against the universe. 

He utterly despises the way Aziraphale’s fingers card through his hair, lips dripping with four letter words. He despises how much he craves it; the demand to be touched and reminded, those four letter words etching themselves into his entire essence like a master sculptor working down a piece of marble. But he isn’t the marble, no matter how hard he wishes he were. 

Yet still, Aziraphale manages to find a way to breathe life into him; those four letter words both said and unsaid in the cover of darkness when no one is watching him commit sacrilege. 

Sometimes he thinks they can see them; Hastur and Beezlebub, and the four letter words that are etched and burned into his body deep beyond where the skin of his corporeal form is. If they do see it, they never say anything. Perhaps it’s best to let him live in the sins that he’s made for himself. He tries to hide those four letter words when he goes to Hell, but six thousand years of being a cliff on a shore has worn many of those rocks away. He’s less of a cliff now and more of a pebble on a beach, but somehow, he doesn’t always seem to mind it. 

Eventually, he finds his own four letter word. It comes abruptly in the middle of the night, as Aziraphale whispers into his skin. 

_ Mine _ , he thinks as he grabs hold of his angel, planting promises against porcelain skin. 

_ Mine  _ he decides as their fingers interlace with one another. 

_ Mine _ he says soft but resolute as he brings his lips down upon Aziraphale’s neck and begins sowing the seeds of his own damnation. 

_ Mine _ comes his testimony of blasphemy against God and Lucifer as he takes hold of Aziraphale in the cover of darkness in his entirety. 

_ Mine _ he growls louder now, affirming his stance as the world begins to fall into equilibrium. 

“Love,” comes the so distant yet so close voice of Aziraphale as the pair become one, that it startles him. 

“Love,” gasps Aziraphale as he shakes below him, their hands still intertwined. 

Love, Crowley thinks as he wraps himself in Aziraphale, losing himself in the angel’s grace. 

It’s painful and it burns and it sears into his brain; he wants to run, to hide, to go as far away from that word as possible. Yet as they lay there, entangled in a galaxy of sentiments and lost words, he understands. 

  
  


Love is a four letter word. 


End file.
